This award provides continued funding for a 3D High Definition (HD) video documentary about an international group of earth scientists engaged in an investigation of the processes responsible for central Mongolia's unusually active uplifting terrain (the Hangay Dome) and its consequences for regional climate patterns and ecosystems (EAR -1009702). The Hangay Dome in central Mongolia provides an excellent and accessible laboratory to investigate these processes and determine the degree to which mantle upwelling, mafic underplating, lithospheric foundering or plume activity have been important agents in its uplift.
This planning grant is designed to engage urban and rural families in science learning while piloting curriculum development and implementation that incorporates both Native and Western epistemologies. Physical, earth, and space science content is juxtaposed with indigenous culture, stories, language and epistemology in after-school programs and teacher training. Project partners include the Dakota Science Center, Fort Berthold Community College, and Sitting Bull College. The Native American tribes represented in this initiative involve partnerships between the Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara. The primary project deliverables include a culturally responsive Beyond Earth Moon Module, teacher training workshops, and a project website. The curriculum module introduces students to the moon's appearance, phases, and positions in the sky using the Night Sky Planetarium Experience Station during programs at the Boys and Girls Club (Ft. Berthold Community College), Night Lights Afterschool program (Sitting Bull Community College), and Valley Middle School (UND and Dakota Science Center). Students also explore core concepts underlying the moon's phases and eclipses using the interactive Nature Experience Station before engaging in the culminating Mission Challenge activity in which they apply their knowledge to problem solving situations and projects. Fifteen pre-service and in-service teachers participate in professional development workshops, while approximately 300 urban and rural Native youth and family members participate in community programs. A mixed-methods evaluation examines the impact of Western and Native science on the learning of youth and families and their understanding of core concepts of science in a culturally responsive environment. The formative evaluation addresses collaboration, development, and implementation of the project using surveys and interviews to document participant progress and obtain input. The summative evaluation examines learning outcomes and partnerships through interviews and observations. Presentations at national conferences, journal publications, and outreach to teachers in the North Dakota Public School System are elements of the project's comprehensive dissemination plan. The project findings may reveal impacts on participants' interest and understanding of connections between Native and Western science, while also assessing the potential for model replication in similar locales around the country.
The Space Science Institute is establishing a museum educator/theater network of eight museums around the country, pairing larger with smaller institutions. The Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific also are collaborators. The primary audience is informal science education museum educators; secondary audiences are museum visitors experiencing the to-be-developed programs. The Science Theater Education Programming System (STEPS) is a technology that has been developed by the PI and others. The team will be continuing to expand the capability of the system for this project, and the partnering museums are collaboratively creating an initial set of theater programs on astrobiology, along with a suite of training programs and communication formats for educators. The STEPS technology allows these programs to be delivered both on site and via outreach, depending on the goals of each organization. The intent is to form the core of a community of practice that would enhance the professional capacity and identities of informal educators. The theater program format is positioned as a flexible, low-cost alternative to traveling exhibits, particularly for the smaller institutions. Deliverables include: the establishment of the network, the STEPS system and programs, professional development tutorials and workshops, evaluation of the programs, and a research project and report examining the network as a community of practice and vehicle for strengthening the professional identities of museum educators.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in collaboration with the Illinois State Museum (ISM), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, will form a museum consortium to develop two virtual reality interactive displays (River Pilot Simulator and Digital River Basin) and other web-based activities that focus on the Mississippi River. This group will be known as the Mississippi River Web Museum Consortium. Each museum will end up with both software modules that will lead visitors to the story of the River. The river's local presence will serve as an entry point for the visitors at each museum. The NCSA will contribute their access to and knowledge of powerful computer simulation, scientific visualization, and collaborations technologies that are usually restricted to research settings and rarely available to a museum audience or the general public. The Consortium will also develop a shared site on the WWW that will invite users to engage in guided inquiry that will deepen their understanding of the large, complex, and integrated river system. The science content underlying the project will include river hydrology and geomorphology, life sciences, environmental studies employing geographic information systems, and the physics of motion. The activities will address a number of the National Science Education Standards. Complementary programming linking these activities with formal education include a RiverWeb(tm) Posting Board and a RiverWeb(tm) Classroom Resource Guide.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in collaboration with the Illinois State Museum (ISM), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, will form a museum consortium to develop two virtual reality interactive displays (River Pilot Simulator and Digital River Basin) and other web-based activities that focus on the Mississippi River. This group will be known as the Mississippi River Web Museum Consortium. Each museum will end up with both software modules that will lead visitors to the story of the River. The river's local presence will serve as an entry point for the visitors at each museum. The NCSA will contribute their access to and knowledge of powerful computer simulation, scientific visualization, and collaborations technologies that are usually restricted to research settings and rarely available to a museum audience or the general public. The Consortium will also develop a shared site on the WWW that will invite users to engage in guided inquiry that will deepen their understanding of the large, complex, and integrated river system. The science content underlying the project will include river hydrology and geomorphology, life sciences, environmental studies employing geographic information systems, and the physics of motion. The activities will address a number of the National Science Education Standards. Complementary programming linking these activities with formal education include a RiverWeb(tm) Posting Board and a RiverWeb(tm) Classroom Resource Guide.
A national facility a three-system ground-based mobile radar fleet, the Doppler On Wheels (DOWs). The three systems include two mobile X-band Doppler on Wheels and the 6 to 12 beam "Rapid Scan DOW". These radar systems have participated in research projects that have covered a broad range of topics including individual cumulus cloud studies, orographic precipitation and dynamics, hydrologic studies, fire weather investigations, severe convective storms and tropical cyclones at landfall. DOWs can be frequently utilized on site for educational activities, such as being part of a university atmospheric instrumentation courses. The DOWs can be operated by students with minimal, often remote, technical supervision. The DOWs add significantly to the facility infrastructure of the atmospheric sciences community.
"Atmospheric Explorations: Participatory, Computer-Based Simulations of the Weather" is a collaborative project of Augsburg College and the Science Museum of Minnesota. The purpose of the project is to enhance the interest and skills of museum visitors and students in science by providing a highly interactive exhibit environmental that allows the users considerable freedom in exploring topics in meteorology relevant to their everydays lives. The exhibits will be designed to accommodate a gender- and racially-diverse audience of national scope.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
William JaspersonDavid VenneJ. Newlin
The Maryland Science Center (MSC) seeks funding for a planning grant to investigate the potential of Science on a Sphere (SOS), a NOAA-developed research tool that projects real meteorological and geological data sets onto a large suspended globe. MSC will evaluate a temporary installation of SOS as a public exhibit and school group learning tool, as well as hold a workshop for staff from other museums and prepare a report for dissemination. INTELLECTUAL MERIT: SOS offers a way to present real data on earth and planetary sciences not possible in a two-dimensional format. An advisory group of exhibit and education professionals from three other science centers (Tech Museum, San Jose, CA; SciPort, Shreveport, LA; Arizona Science Center, Phoenix, AZ) and NOAA will add expertise in the evaluation of SOS, which will be carried out by RMC Research Corporation. BROADER IMPACT: SOS has the potential to become a new tool for science center presentations nationwide. Testing and evaluation results will be shared with other science centers at the ASTC Annual Conference and other means of dissemination.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Roberta CooksPeter YanconeJames O'Leary
Arizona State University will develop new features for its SciStarter website that will expand participation in citizen science and provide rich data for researching the nature of and impacts of citizen science participation. SciStarter is a popular online citizen science hotspot featuring more than 850 searchable citizen science projects, added by researchers and project owners, and serving over 35,000 citizen scientists. The project will develop new features to add to the current website that will enable participants to explore hundreds of citizen science projects and select projects of most interest to them, track their participation, and connect to people and projects they are interested in. The expanded website will also provide rich data that will help citizen science projects evaluate their programs and that will rich data for researchers to investigate the nature of citizen science participation. The website will be widely accessible to the public through partnerships with Discover Magazine, the Citizen Science Association, and other partners. The SciStarter website will develop additional features to expand citizen science participation and to research the nature and impacts of participation. The expanded features will include: (1) an integrated registration for participants to more easily engage in one or multiple citizen science projects, across platforms; (2) GIS implementation for project owners to define the geographic boundaries of projects so participants can find them more easily; and (3) an online, personal dashboard for participants to track their projects, participation, and contributions to science, share and save data, record interests in projects, create profiles, and find people and projects of interest to them. These new features will create opportunities for future research concerning: (1) understanding how citizen scientists use the site and how it responds to their needs and interests, and (2) understanding why, how, and with what impacts citizen scientists participate in research. The project will support the overall strategy of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program to enhance learning in informal environments through the funding of innovative resources through a variety of settings. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This media and research project will inform adult audiences about the discoveries of NSF funded Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) scientists that are dramatically re-shaping fields as diverse as economics, marketing, medicine and government. Four primetime PBS specials hosted by science reporter, Miles O'Brien, will be produced featuring leading SBE scientists and vetted for inclusion by a panel of expert advisors including Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon and Robert Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania. A key innovation in the project is a participatory research strategy that will enable the public to take part directly in scientific behavioral research and discover what their participation has revealed about their own lives. Built around YouTube features, Facebook, and online games it will build on the public's interest in learning about themselves and others via social media supported by scientific research. The project collaborators include the media company, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and researchers at Carnegie Mellon, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Chapman University. This project is unique in its strategy for combining broadcast television programs focusing on Social, Behavioral, and Economics research with a participatory research component that engages audiences in scientific studies that are personally relevant. It will fill an important niche in the informal learning research literature and has the potential to impact media practice that continues to evolve incorporating new online social media tools. RMC will conduct formative evaluation to help inform the project deliverables, a summative evaluation of the project, and an experimental research study in Year 3 of the project. The research study is based on the hypothesis that those participants assigned to watch the entire television series and engage in all participatory research activities will experience the greatest gains in STEM interest and engagement as compared to those who only have limited exposure. Research participants will be randomly assigned to the control group (no services) or one of the three treatment conditions: view TV only; engage in participatory website only; or both. Pre-tests and posttests and statistical tools will be used to compare changes. Sub-studies will examine dosage levels and effectiveness in engaging those who have not previously been interested in STEM.
In concert with the overall strategy of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments, Principal Investigators from Oregon State University, University of Idaho, and University of Texas at Dallas, will study a range of data in online social networks to identify evidence of the long-term impact of informal STEM education. Tracking informal learners over time to understand the impact of informal learning experiences has been a longstanding, daunting, and elusive challenge. Now, with massive amounts of data being shared and stored online, education researchers have an unprecedented opportunity to study such data and apply data analytics and visualization technologies to identify the long-term, cascading effects of informal STEM learning. Research findings will inform the design and development of a data-analysis tool for use by education practitioners to improve STEM learning experiences online, through television and film, and at informal education institutions. An independent external critical review board of learning scientists, computer scientists, engineers, informal STEM education practitioners, participating partners, broadcast media professionals, and policymakers, will ensure a robust evaluation of the research and effectiveness and utility of the data analysis tool to improve practice. A summary report for the field will be written on the scientific and practical reliability and validity of the research and data-analysis model, and the value of the work for audiences beyond informal STEM education practitioners and policymakers. The research is contemporaneously relevant, advancing innovative use of data-mining and data-analysis processes to better understand how informal learners communicate STEM learning experiences and interact with STEM content over time, across a range of social networks. Investigators will research: 1) whether learners who engage in informal STEM education experiences further their learning through discussions and sharing of information in social media networks, 2) which types of data are present in social media that are relevant for understanding the cascading impacts of learning over time, and 3) how learning may evolve independently within shared social networks, which, if discovered, could provide a predictive computational model with implications for significant impact across both formal and informal education. Investigators will employ existing and modified data crawlers to search for key terms and phrases, assess spikes and deformations in posts, queries, and blogs, and experiment with their test data to find which types or configurations of keywords or search terms deliver the most reliable and accurate results. A variety of formats will be explored to test various strategies with participating partners and practitioners. Data will be visualized to represent the following dimensions of learning: a) Interest/Affect, b) Recommendations, c) Understanding/Knowledge-Seeking, and d) Deeper Engagement.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This education project is a time sensitive opportunity related to the March 9, 2016 Total Solar Eclipse occurring in a remote part of the world located in Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia, a U.S. affiliated Pacific Island nation. The path of totality is only 100 miles wide and passes through only a few Pacific Island nations ending in Hawaii. This project uses this unique phenomenon to educate a large US and international audience about solar science using multi-platforms with integrated video, social media, and public programs. Project deliverables include the production of a broadcast of the eclipse live from Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia on March 9, 2016 making it accessible to hundreds of countries and millions of people around the world via satellite and live streaming on the Internet. Additional deliverables include on-site educational programs at science centers and planetariums as well as media resources for long-term use. These resources will enhance the interest and preparedness for additional public engagement when the 2017 eclipse occurs in the U.S. Making new research understandable and accessible to the public is an important activity of the U.S. research enterprise. NSF is making a substantial investment in solar physics research by funding the construction of the world's largest solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope which is slated to begin operations in late 2019 and operated by the National Solar Observatory. This new facility will revolutionize researchers' capability to study the Sun and its magnetic fields. This education project leverages that investment with a major public engagement opportunity that has the potential for reaching millions of students, teachers, and the public both in the U.S. and worldwide through the Internet.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
ExploratoriumRobert SemperNicole MinorRobyn Higdon